Month: February 2016

Earlier this year I spoke with the Utah State School Board about the the sexual abuse prevention teaching that will start for K – 6th grade students in Utah in fall 2016.  The kind woman I spoke with told me that the focus of the program was to educate people about grooming. As a previous foster parent of many abused youth I understood the importance of teaching about grooming and how to beware of it. 

Now that we are seeing a bill come forward in the state of Utah that is promoting Comprehensive Sexuality Education I seeing grooming in a new light. 

This is what grooming looked like for the majority of my sexually abused foster children: First, someone gets the child alone or with a group of friends, away from their parents. Second, the older person or adult teaches them something new about either the adult body or the child’s body. They taught them new words and new sensations. Next, the child engaged in sexual behaviors and experiences. Finally, the child feels ready to engage in sexual intercourse. 

This is what grooming looks like for an abuser. 

Now, let’s examine what the school teachers would be doing if they chose to teach the SEICUS healthy sexuality guidelines through the Comprehensive Sexuality Education program. 

First, they would get the children away from their parents during the school day. Second, they teach the children new words and new things about their bodies, including new sensations and feelings. Next, they tell the children it is normal to engage in sexual experiences and behaviors. Finally, after a few years they expect the child is having sexual intercourse and offer information about abortion and contraceptive services to decrease responsibility and diminish cause and effect. 

It sounds to me like the Utah State School Board ought to say no to Comprehensive Sexuality Education because it would be grooming children for sexual behaviors and experiences. I agree, people need to understand grooming!  Law makers, school teachers and even the school board needs to understand what certain curriculums will groom the minds of children to do. 

Here is the table of contents and some examples from the SEICUS guidellines that would be taught to children in Utah if the Comprehensive Sexuality Education bill passes and if SEICUS guidelines are offered to adults as resources. 

Guidelines for Comprehensive

Sexuality Education: Key Concepts

and Topics (page 18 of the guidelines) 

 

Key Concept 1: Human Development

 

Topic 1: Reproductive and Sexual Anatomy

and Physiology

Topic 2: Puberty

Topic 3: Reproduction

Topic 4: Body Image

Topic 5: Sexual Orientation

Topic 6: Gender Identity

 

Key Concept 2: Relationships

 

Topic 1: Families

Topic 2: Friendship

Topic 3: Love

Topic 4: Romantic Relationships and Dating

Topic 5: Marriage and Lifetime

Commitments

Topic 6: Raising Children

 

Key Concept 3: Personal Skills

 

Topic 1: Values

Topic 2: Decision-making

Topic 3: Communication

Topic 4: Assertiveness

Topic 5: Negotiation

Topic 6: Looking for Help

 

Key Concept 4: Sexual Behavior

 

Topic 1: Sexuality Throughout Life

Topic 2: Masturbation

Topic 3: Shared Sexual Behavior

Topic 4: Sexual Abstinence

Topic 5: Human Sexual Response

Topic 6: Sexual Fantasy

Topic 7: Sexual Dysfunction

 

Key Concept 5: Sexual Health

 

Topic 1: Reproductive Health

Topic 2: Contraception

Topic 3: Pregnancy and Prenatal Care

Topic 4: Abortion

Topic 5: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Topic 6: HIV and AIDS

Topic 7: Sexual Abuse, Assault, Violence,

and Harassment

 

Key Concept 6: Society and Culture

 

Topic 1: Sexuality and Society

Topic 2: Gender Roles

Topic 3: Sexuality and the Law

Topic 4: Sexuality and Religion

Topic 5: Diversity

Topic 6: Sexuality and the Media

Topic 7: Sexuality and the Arts 

 

Some Quotes From The Guidelines (due to space only a few have been selected) Please read the full document here.   https://www.siecus.org/_data/global/images/guidelines.pdf 

 

Age 5 – 8

 

Both boys and girls have body parts that feel good when touched. 

Touching and rubbing one’s own genitals to feel good is called masturbation.

Some boys and girls masturbate and others do not.

• Each body part has a correct name and a specific function.

• A person’s genitals, reproductive organs, and genes determine whether the person is male or female.

• A boy/man has nipples, a penis, a scrotum, and testicles.

• A girl/woman has breasts, nipples, a vulva, a clitoris, a vagina, a uterus, and ovaries. 

Vaginal intercourse – when a penis is placed inside a vagina – is the most common way for a sperm and egg to join. 

Dating is when two people who are romantically attracted to each other spend their free time together.

People often kiss, hug, touch, and engage in other sexual behaviors with one another to show caring and to feel good.

Couples have varied ways to share sexual pleasure with each other.

• Being sexual with another person usually involves more than sexual intercourse.

 

 

Age 9 – 12

During puberty, many people begin to develop sexual and romantic feelings.

Contraception can prevent fertilization and/or pregnancy. 

Both teenagers and adults may have romantic relationships.

• Masturbation is often the first way a person experiences sexual pleasure.

• Many boys and girls begin to masturbate for sexual pleasure during puberty.

• Some boys and girls never masturbate.

• Masturbation does not cause physical or mental harm.

• Some families, religions, and cultures believe that masturbation is wrong. (what is going to be taught here?) 

 

 

Age 12 – 15 

Some sexual and reproductive organs provide pleasure. 

The size and shape of sexual organs does not affect a person’s ability to reproduce or experience sexual pleasure. 

Friendships sometimes evolve into romantic relationships.

Values should be freely chosen after the alternatives and their consequences are evaluated. 

Being assertive in sexual situations may be especially difficult. 

• All people, regardless of biological sex, gender, age, ability, and culture, are sexual beings.

• Sexuality is experienced in a variety of ways at different stages and points in people’s lives.

Sexual feelings, fantasies, and desires occur throughout life.

• Masturbation, either alone or with a partner, is one way people can enjoy and express their sexuality

without risking pregnancy or an STD/HIV.

Many negative myths exist about masturbation

• Some sexual behaviors shared by partners include kissing; touching; talking; caressing; massaging; and oral, vaginal, or anal intercourse.

Many pleasurable sexual behaviors do not put an individual at risk for an unintended pregnancy or STDs/HIV.

• Both men and women can give and receive sexual pleasure.

 

Age 15 – 18

Individuals may want to use a mirror to look closely at their external organs so they can note any changes that may indicate health problems.

Reproductive functioning is different from sexual functioning. 

Some love relationships involve sexual intimacy while others do not. 

Dating can be a way to learn about other people, about romantic and sexual feelings and expressions, and about what it is like to be in an intimate relationship.

Deciding not to be a parent may be difficult because of societal and cultural pressures to have and raise children.

A person may accept his/her family’s values and not always agree with all of them. 

People who feel strongly about their values often share and affirm them publicly. 

• Communication about sexual feelings, desires, and boundaries can improve sexual relationships.

Communication is necessary to assure consent for a sexual relationship and any sexual behavior. 

• Sexuality is a natural part of being human.

• Sexuality is one component of total well-being to be expressed in harmony with other life needs.

Healthy sexuality enhances total well-being.

• People who are single, married, or in a committed relationship may masturbate.

• Masturbation may be an important part of a couple’s sexual relationship.

Being sexual with another person does not mean that masturbation must or should stop. 

• For many people, sharing a sexual experience with a partner is a satisfying way to express sexuality.

• Couples and individuals need to decide how to express their sexual feelings.

• As people get older, they may continue to discover new forms of sexual expression to share with a partner.

Individuals can learn what gives them sexual pleasure and communicate that to partners in order to enhance their sexual relationships. 

People can have sexual fantasies about individuals of all genders without it necessarily affecting their understanding of their sexual orientation. 

• Some people use erotic photographs, movies, art, literature, or the Internet to enhance their sexual fantasies when alone or with a partner.

With the current Utah Legislation HB 246 that has been proposed in Utah, we feel it is timely to remind Utah that they are actually doing really well, and there is no reason to change when we are very successful in our schools when it comes to combating STDs and teen pregnancy. 

Utah is getting it right when it comes to code and reproductive education and health. Lawmakers have been very conscientious recognizing the rights of parents with an “opt-in” policy and in protecting the conscience of the child, while providing necessary health and disease information.  It is correct and appropriate that Utah policy mandates abstinence only instruction and requires curriculum materials to exclude:

Intricacies of intercourse, sexual stimulation, or erotic behavior

Advocacy of homosexuality

Advocacy or encouragement of contraceptive use, or methods

Advocacy of sexual activity outside of marriage

Positive outcomes demonstrated in data support Utah’s policies regarding reproductive education & health in youth.

 (Information below from the SEICUS website under their state report)

Utah as a state has the least number of abortions in the US.

As of 2010, Utah ranks 50 in the number of annual abortions with 4 per 1,000 pregnancies of youth ages 14-19. The national is average 15 per 1,000.

Utah has a low teen pregnancy rate.

As of 2010, Utah ranks 45 in teen pregnancy with 38 per 1,000 of youth ages 14-19. The national average is 57 per 1,000.

Because of Utah’s low abortion rate, teen birth rates go up some. As of 2012 Utah ranks 39th with a birth rate of 23 per 1,000,of youth ages 14-19. The national average is 30 per 1,000.

AIDS infections are less than 1 per 100,000  of youth ages 13-24 with the national average 11 per 100,000. STDS are low with Utah ranking 50th for chlamydia infection, 48th in gonorrhea infection, and zero cases of syphilis infection as of 2011, youth ages 15-19.

Science also supports the leading direction Utah code upholds. A recent and major study published in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescents by the Jemmotts of the University of Pennsylvania showed that an abstinence based curriculum not only reduced sexual activity among youth, but demonstrated other “safe sex” and “comprehensive” programs are actually counterproductive.

    It is very disconcerting that modern standards and practices advanced across the U.S. regarding reproductive education and health for the last 45 years are potentially injurious, but not surprising. Lawmakers ought to be aware that the organizations, individuals, and research behind the counterproductive “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” are founded on bad science and sordid. SEICUS, the Sexuality Education and Information Council of the United States has questionably asserted itself as the leading “comprehensive sexuality education” authority. But SEICUS is just a registered non- profit charity organized in 1964 by various sexually dubious ideologues. The founder, Dr. Mary Calderone, former medical director for the Planned Parenthood Federation began SEICUS with seed money from Hugh Heffner.  Her primary goal for the organization though, was not to treat or prevent disease, but to re-sexualize society about “the vital importance of infant and childhood sexuality,” through the education system. Her instruction to parents was that a child’s sexuality ought to:

…be developed in the same way as the child’s inborn human capacity to talk or to walk, and that the parent’s role should relate only to teaching the child the appropriateness of privacy, place, and person-in a word socialization.1

Children are sexual and think sexual thoughts and do sexual things. Mom and Dad must accept and honor their child’s erotic potential.2

But really “socialization” should be “grooming” a term used to describe the behavior of pedophiles in desensitizing & preparing a victim. SEICUS’ sexuality instruction for children today found in the volumes of pamphlets, websites and sex-ed curriculum (also through Planned Parenthood and other type orgs), eerily parallels a grooming mindset used by perpetrators-first, in gaining trust and promoting themselves as the exclusive and confidential (secret) source for information and then introducing erotic material meant to stir curiosity, desensitize, and stimulate.

  SEICUS no longer publicizes its board members, but Wardell Pomery was one of its original members.  Back then, Pomeroy was a paid contributor to Penthouse Magazine and sexual activist, who also promoted incest. He wrote:

“In father-daughter incest, the daughter’s age makes all the difference in the world. The older she is, the likelier it is that the experience will be a positive one.”3

 Calderon’s associate and fellow activist Lester Kirkendall with a PHD from Columbia University’s Teacher’s College also participated in the development of SEICUS sexuality standards. He was author of the 1976 “bill of sexual rights.” His vision was to promote sexual anarchy as healthy and normal, while eradicating any type of sexual bias against his ideas in the social, moral, and legal spheres.

The theory of sexualizing infants and children and “anything goes” sexuality as healthy promoted by such persons as Calderone, Pomery, and Kirkendall, was not of their construction. They were just agents eager to legitimize the pseudo- research published by now deceased Alfred Kinsey. Kinsey, who was a taxonomic professor from the University of Indiana, and a sexual anarchist both in practice and theory turned sex researcher, set out successfully to begin a sexual revolution. He wanted to change society to align with his pathological sexual practices. 

     His research first published in Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (1948) was fraudulent in its message, methodology, and illegal activity. Kinsey’s big idea was that humans were entitled to sexual pleasure from birth, so terms like “age-appropriate” would include sexual activity for adolescents, children even infants. According to Kinsey everyone was a sexual deviant, but just hiding it, therefore what was being taught as normal was just a lie, and sexual deviancy was the real normal. He claimed society’s Christian morality was harmful from its views on sexual taboos such as incest, to its teachings on monogamous marriage, which he believed a hindrance to man’s full sexuality development, who is really just a sexual animal.  In his actual research, population samples were way too small for his grand conclusions, but more important, the population sampling was specifically pulled from a sexually unconventional demographic. For example, most subjects would fall under the category of prison inmate, prostitute, adulterer, homosexual, pedophile etc. The most sickening of the research came as the result of criminal activity. In the systematic molestation of 300 children, Kinsey gathered data from the abusers and compiled it into what is referred to as tables 31- 34. For the sake of propriety, the graphic contents of the table are excluded. All this was accomplished through his institute at Indiana University and was helped launched by his original financial benefactor Hugh Heffner. 

    Kinsey’s reports were used by ACLU lawyer Morris Ernst and author/academic David Loth to implement legal reform. On the basis of his “social science” reports, the American Law Institute Model Penal Code set the new precedent for detangling morality from law in its “sex offences” section, implementing a complete paradigm shift. The model was swiftly distributed nationwide to legislators, which led to reduced or eliminated rape sentencing, it being considered a victimless crime, as well as the slow dissolving of other sex crimes and laws protecting women and children.

    The far-reaching influence of Kinsey’s work and its negative legal, moral, social and economic effects upon modern society is staggering, and the grip it still holds upon it is unbelievable, especially in lieu of the fact that wide spread public exposure of his fraudulent methodology began in the nineties. To chronicle the current institutional buy-in and power web formed of individuals and institutions, Kinsey spin offs, that continue to legitimize and promote his work, is too great to include.

    In conclusion, this brief synopsis is meant to help reinforce lawmaker’s recognition that “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” and any standard linked to Kinsey, SEICUS or other type organization is outdated, is not science- based and designed to sexualize children, not promote health. It is harmful to children both inside and out. Utah currently does not accept funds from the federal government specifically allocated for the implementation of Comprehensive Sexuality Education- a recent federal funding move away from abstinence only curriculum. AS CITIZENS OF UTAH, WE APPLAUD YOU FOR HAVING THE VISION TO NOT ACCEPT THESE FUNDS, AND KEEPING COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY ED OUT OF UTAH. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK AND THANK YOU! 

 

References:

1.  Seicus Report,       May-July 1983

2.     Dr. Mary Calerone, Dr James Ramey, Talking with Your Child About Sex, Ballantine Books, 1982

3.  “Wardell Pomery: Kinsey Coauthor Speaks Out” Chic Magazine, February 1981

Much of the information has been learned from Judith Reisman’s, PHD work